


falling away with you

by threadoflife



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Fluff, Introspection, Love, M/M, POV First Person, all the softness, soft Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-31 01:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12121599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threadoflife/pseuds/threadoflife
Summary: He gazes at me seldom like this: as though I am the treasure he could not possibly have deduced would be found behind this ordinary skin and average brain.





	falling away with you

**Author's Note:**

> random phone tl;dr-Ing at midnight...
> 
> posted first here
> 
> http://wssh-watson.tumblr.com/post/165450737167/soft-holmes-attacks-holmes-is-not-in-the-habit-of
> 
> I'm falling deeper into ACD H/W than ever. god help me.

Holmes is not in the habit of doing this often.

It is not his customary derision of sentiment that prevents him from gazing at me in anything other but his familiar ways, that I know; it is simply in his nature to guard his heart and forsake excessive emotional eloquence or grand gestures. I could no more find it in me to fault him for it than I could fault him for who he is: a preposterous notion. As he is, Holmes is everything. As he is, so am I.

Yet, sometimes, rarely indeed, he does this: allow his curious, so sharp eyes to soften with the emotion I know him to possess so deeply, so viscerally. He looks at me then as he looks upon quite nothing else; I could parallel this specific pliancy of his often harsh mouth---these curious arches of his brows: overpowered with some pain, some delight---the inconspicuous quivering of his lips---and, above all, that impossible depth in his gaze, well-deep and profound and consuming---I could parallel these beautiful oddities of his facial expression only with some significant musical encounter, when Holmes converses in languages unknown to me, entire worlds away. If I reached for him then, I could not hold onto him.

This, here, now, is different; vastly different. He is as close to me as he allows himself to be behind locked doors and drawn curtains and under the cover of the night. We share our breaths. If I reached for him now, I could feel the flush of his cheek heat my fingertips; if I reached for him now, I could sense the flutter of his lashes---such generous lashes for a man---against the bridge of my nose. If I reached for him now, I could have all of him, vulnerable, exposed, and terrifying as he now is.

He gazes at me seldom like this: as though I am the treasure he could not possibly have deduced would be found behind this ordinary skin and average brain. He is mistaken, of course; the treasure is all Holmes, could only ever be Holmes. And yet, selfish as I am, not the good man he sees in me at all, I stare back in these seldom instances, hold his eyes with mine and allow him to consume me. His love is bright and sharp like a ray of the sun suddenly materialised, spearing me with heat and such an incredible light from within I fear I shall perish. His love is greater than words can possibly ever hope to intuit; I, selfish, paralysed before this terror, this danger, can do naught but allow him to trap me in his eyes.

This rarity, I know, lasts only for another few seconds, if I am fortunate at all. The knowledge of this does not make me grieve. Could we love one another openly, I doubt he would; it is not in his nature.

I do not need it to be in his nature. Having him with me like this---having him gaze me like this, once or twice or perhaps three times in my life---is a privilege I never hoped to achieve, yet here I am.

It is worth all the wounds, all the secrecy, all the locked doors and drawn curtains and hours of the night.


End file.
